No Instruction Manual

Buckminster Fuller once compared Planet Earth to a spaceship hurling through the universe, and simultaneously noted that Spaceship Earth failed to come with an instruction book. I am noting the same thing about Human Beings today. Alas, we fail to come with an instruction manual! Oh, we've attempted plenty of self-help books, but they woefully miss the mark.

Perhaps there is a reason for this. Perhaps there is a reason that I have studied and learned how to make the dog "sit" and "stay." She even knows how to "leave it," when I hold food out, until encouraged with an "Okay, take it." But I don't know how to train myself to resist that last piece of chocolate covered almond.

No, really, I am joking but I'm not. I think about a baby in its crib, intrigued with the movement of his or her own fingers and toes. Sometimes I look at myself and see a complete alien! How odd these thoughts, these likes and dislikes, these fingers and toes!

So, what's the point? Maybe our life is really the writing of that missing instruction manual. Maybe the only way to learn the operating instructions is through trial and error, through mishaps, through grand adventures and through highs and lows. Maybe if we'd been given the instruction manual in the beginning, we'd never have created our messy and wildly exotic lives. We'd certainly have been very boring to God.

At the heart of this little entry is a call to give up waiting to figure it out, give up seeking the right answer in a book or a guru, and be fully present to the unfolding of the moment. "Ah, here I am. It is Monday at 3:00 pm, and we're on page 4514 of the Instruction Manual." And, if that is the case, my lessons for the afternoon are around taking out the garbage, walking the dog, and finishing the proposal I've been procrastinating around. Knowing these are vital lessons, I will pay closer attention. The future of Spaceship Earth may exist on my learning today's lessons. And if you think I'm joking about THAT, I'm not. If not now, when, and if not me, who? Writing a book while one is reading it is interesting work.